


The Last of the House

by Vana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 21:04:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1832248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Selyse and Stannis Baratheon at the crossroads of their uneasy marriage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last of the House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deisegal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deisegal/gifts).



When she looks at Melisandre of Asshai, she sees beauty, desirability, sensuality, the Flame of R'hllor made flesh — and the woman her husband truly wants.

When she looks at Davos Seaworth, she sees loyalty, honesty, humility, her husband's most staunch supporter — and the friend he would rather keep company with.

When she looks at Shireen, she sees intelligence, wit, compassion — and the scars her daughter will never escape, the scars that mark her as cursed and the only surviving child of her faithless marriage bed.

When she looks at herself in the glass, she sees crumbled strength, a collapsed tower of dignity, the weight of old age marking her face too early. She is nearly the same age as Cersei Lannister, but one woman's beauty is celebrated in the seven kingdoms and the other's is mocked, whispered about in hallways and courts. "Stannis Baratheon's ugly wife," they call her, and as she stands naked before the glass, her eyes appraising her own fallen flesh, she knows it is true. Her stomach sags from four pregnancies, her breasts hang, the frown lines around her mouth are etched deeply, her arms and legs are coated with wiry hairs, her skin is pale and her veins stand out blue and spidery. But it's her own eyes that frighten her: they are defeated, wide, pained, like a fox caught in a snare and in the last stages of life. 

 _I must escape it_ , she realizes. _I must._

She has had no friends for some time and she denounced her family when Delena disgraced her at her own wedding, so she will have very few people to wonder or to miss her. Shireen will be happier, even healthier without the poison of her bitter mother. Davos and his Marya will raise her as their own daughter alongside their remaining sons. Stannis, without the burden of a wife, will provide for them all and happily do it. Melisandre will look to the fire and see only what her god wants her to see — which would not be Selyse Florent, in life or death.

She dresses with deliberation, feeling stronger than she has in years. Her clothing is dark and heavy and unattractive, but that won't hinder her. She sits down for supper — the last meal she will eat with her family. Shireen is silent, Davos is absent and Stannis is distracted speaking with Melisandre about prophesies that no longer ring true for Selyse. The fire, the ice, the battle for the dawn and the coming winter — none of these matter. Selyse speaks not a word and no one remarks on it. 

In the night, she raises up on an elbow and regards her husband. When she looks at Stannis, she sees a man she had hoped to love, a man she had learned to love, a man who loved nothing and who had been torn between duty and despair from the day his parents drowned. _I would give almost anything to have Cassana alive._ Selyse somehow knows that Stannis' mother would love her. It is the only thing she has been sure about for a very long time. If Cassana Baratheon had lived, Selyse's sons would have been born whole and healthy, and her daughter the precious pearl in the family crown. If Cassana had lived, Stannis and Renly and Robert would never have divided their house and come to despise one another. If Cassana had lived, she would be the Mother to them all and Stannis would have no need of fire gods. Stannis wished often for Steffon's wisdom, but it was Cassana that Selyse pinned her dead hopes on. 

And she is not coming back.

Selyse leans over to Stannis and presses a light kiss to his forehead.

"Farewell, my lord," she whispers. Her eyes brim with tears, but her heart pounds. She will escape the biting, bloody snare of this life and fly to a new one, through the sea and to the other side of the world if she must.

 

—

 

In the dark, Stannis wakes. His right side is cold, and he pats the other side of the mattress to find it hot — burning hot. "Selyse?" he mumbles, sleepily. There is no answer but the crackling of a candle in the entryway.

Stannis sits upright. His wife is often in her private chamber, or in Melisandre's, but the heat where she should have been makes him uneasy. She must have just been there moments ago.

"Selyse?" he says again. He hardly knows why he is wondering. She's slipped away from him over the years — and he from her, he thinks unwillingly, knowing that he did not only want Melisandre for her red god's power. 

"Selyse?" He is dressing, fumbling for his cloak in the dim light. He thinks of the Mountain, coming in the night to beat and murder the Lannisters' enemies.

"Selyse?" He is walking with a candle, lighting a torch, striding down the corridor. Melisandre's chamber is dark, but there is a light flickering from underneath Shireen's small wooden door. Heedless of waking her, he flings the door open.

Selyse is kneeling by Shireen's sleeping body, holding her hand, pressing her forehead to the bed.

"What ails you, woman?" Relief makes Stannis speak even more harshly than he would normally. "Is Shireen ill?"

When Selyse looks up at him, he sees something dangerous and wild in her eyes, almost feverish. "Are _you_ ill, my lady?" 

It takes long moments for his wife to find her voice, but when she does, it scares him more than her eyes did. 

"I am not ill," she says. "I am only saying goodbye."

Stannis is dumbfounded. _Is our child dying?_ "Speak sense, woman," he says, but his voice is low and uncertain.

"I am speaking perfect sense, and you will not call me _woman._ I am leaving this castle. I am leaving my daughter and my husband and my priestess. I am leaving my god. I am leaving my home. This is no home of mine," and she looks around her. "This has been no home of mine since before I ever came here."

"I forbid it," Stannis tells her. And she laughs in his face.

"You forbid nothing," she says. "When I am gone, you can have the Lady Melisandre and Lord Seaworth and the Princess Shireen and whoever else you want around you. You have no need of me and I have no need of you. You have no love for me and —"

Stannis waits.

"And I have no love for you." But her voice falters, and gives her away.

"That is a lie ... Selyse." He can see it in her face. She loves him and she has loved him since they wed. He goes to her and takes her hand, then draws her to him and presses her face to his shoulder. He cannot bring himself to say everything he should say to this woman who has suffered life's cruel arrows and harshest punishments and survived, even growing stronger through her grief. She is the keystone of the family and without her the castle will fall.

"We have need of each other," he says. Though he cannot tell Selyse that he loves her, he takes Shireen's hand and hers together in his, and as she softens and warms, he believes she knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [CommaSplice](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CommaSplice/) for looking over this for me!


End file.
